Monthly Archives: October 2015

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, founded by the University of California in 1952

“We’re getting arrested, but they’re the ones committing the crime.”
That was the observation of Phyllis Olin, President of the Western States Legal Foundation, as she prepared to be arrested for protesting 70 years of nuclear bomb-making at California’s Livermore Laboratory, an epicenter of America’s on-going nuclear weapons production complex to which Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama has pledged 1 trillion dollars over the next 30 yeears. With no apparent sense of irony, the continued, perpetual upgrading of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, capable of killing everyone and everything on the planet, is called ‘The Life-Extension Program.’

Chizu Hamada, of No Nukes Action, poetically and poignantly describes the connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power through the story of Japan. [Read her passionate statement below] She concludes “What can we do? We must keep on protesting. We must never give up. Because the spirits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims are here now, and are wishing the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

Watch for our video report – 70 Years of Nuclear Weapons: At what cost? on cable listings below….

We Must Never Give Up Working for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

Chizu Hamada speaks at Livermore protest. EON photo

Ohayougozaiasu. Good Morning,

I was born in Japan, and I grew up in a post-war climate that has shaped the way I view the world.

A couple month ago, I had a chance to speak about Japanese militarism. During that talk, I mentioned that dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. When the Q & A session came, a member of the audience expressed her opinion that Japan didn’t apologize to the USA, so why should the USA have to apologize to Japan. All opinions are valid, but I wondered if this woman really knew how horrible the effects of atomic bombs are. I wondered if she ever had a chance to know the facts of aftermaths of atomic bombings.

Two atomic bombs massacred over 150,000 people instantly. The total of 200,000 people were died in that year. Over 600.000 people have died up to this day due to those bombs. Most of these death were innocent civilians. When people were not instantly killed, they suffered greatly with burns, disfiguration, keloids, and finally took their last breath. Even now after 70 years later aftereffects remain, such as leukemia, A- bomb cataracts, cancers, birth defects, mental retardation. And the fear of birth defects in children will last many generations.

In 2014, Asahi newspaper in Japan researched 58 American major text books for Junior High and High school published from 1949 to 2010. 40 books didn’t even mention about death toll in Nagasaki. Of the books mentioning the number of deaths, more than half reported only half of numbers that Japan provided to United Nations. And only 5 books mentioned that radiation effects last for many years.

For all of us, it is very important to let people know how Atomic bombs are horrible, and inhumane. Atomic bombs should never be built, for they will ruin human kind, animals and the entire Earth.

So Japan has experienced horrible Atomic bombs twice. Did Japan learn from Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Sadly, the answer is NO. When US wanted to sell nuclear power plants as “Atoms for peace”, Japan foolishly bought them. Of course, many Japanese people were very sensitive and afraid of nuclear power plants at that time. But Matutaro Shoriki who was called the “Father of Nuclear Energy” created a big newspaper company and he started to brain wash people by mass media that nuclear energy is cheap, safe and efficient . And the government and he succeeded . Altogether 54 nuclear power plants were built on tiny earthquake-prone islands.

Four and a half years ago when Fukushima Daiichi melted down, we have awakened wild. A report by the congress research concluded this was a man- made accident, an accident that would have been prevented if they had prepared for it, but they didn’t because there has been deep collusion between industry, the Nuclear regulators and the Japanese government.

The Japanese government has been lying to not only to the Japanese but also to the people of the world. As you know , when PM Abe invited the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo, he said “The Fukushima accident is under control.” And this is a lie. It has such a high level of radiation, that humans can’t get close to the core of the reactor, so we don’t know what exactly happened. We don’t know where the melted core is – inside the vessel or outside. Even several robots they sent in, have broken down.
Radiation is seeping out everyday into the air and into the Pacific Ocean. There are more than 100 children diagnosed the thyroid cancers. The evacuees are forced back to live in the contaminated areas. The tragedy has continued and the the daunting task has just began.

When people needed to seek the truth to save the victims and to protest the government’s policies, the government created the Secrecy Law, which was passed in December 2013. This Secrecy Law is so vague that bureaucrats and politicians can designate state secrets to their liking. People seeking state secrets or disclosing state secrets can be punished with up to 5 years in prison.

Then came the reinterpretation of our pacifist constitution. This bill have already approved in the lower Parliament and will pass the upper Parliament in this summer. The law allow our self defence force go out and join the US war. Japan seems as if wants to be prosperous by the war. So Henoko base has been pushed to be built, and Okinawa people’s sufferings never end.

The law has been created and changed to go forward the Japanese militarism. Japan can export war weapons now. Japan can send our military outside to kill people. Now Japan needs the nuclear weapons. Japan has 48 tons of plutonium. These can be created into 6000 nuclear weapons. Japan has been keeping the nuclear power plants for the potential of creating nuclear weapons and to make the threat to the neighboring countries.

That is the reason the Japanese government has never quit nuclear power plants. Even after the Fukushima disaster, they have pushed very hard to restart the next plant. So the Sendai nuclear power plant will restart anytime this month even though it is located near a huge active volcano. And the next and next nuclear power plants are lined up for restarting.

What can we do. We must keep on protesting. We must never give up. Because the spirits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims are here now, and are wishing the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Former nuclear industry executive turned nuclear safety advocate ARNIE GUNDERSEN has over 40-years of nuclear power engineering experience, gave testimony in the investigation of Three Mile Island, and began studying the catastrophic failure at the Dai-lchi Nuclear Power Plant the day of the first explosion. Chief Nuclear Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, he has produced expert reports on California nukes & numerous informative videos & articles available at Fairewinds.org

Scientists for We the People
What are the impacts on wildlife, sealife and human health of the on-going Fukushima nuclear disaster?

Governments are not adequately monitoring the continuing contamination and are ignoring the issue.

The global nuclear establishment attempts to downplay and deny any risks with bogus propaganda ploys like ‘radiophobia’ (its all in your head) and ‘hormesis’ (chronic radiation exposure is good for you).

However, independent scientists are stepping into the monitoring, research and information breach. On Sept. 2, 2015, EON teamed up with local community organizer Bing Gong, Fukushima Response Campaign co-founder John Bertucci and Steve Costa and Kate Levinson of Pt. Reyes Books to host the first community program nationally to bring together two top scientists on the subject. Here are videos of the three presentations that resulted. [Stay tuned for the next installment of this series in November with nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education.]

Also linked to below are reports on a study of thyroid cancer in Fukushima kids.

Within months of the Fukushima disaster, Ken Buesseler assembled an international research cruise to sample the waters surrounding the nuclear plant. Incredibly high amounts of radioactivity were detected and more has flowed into the Pacific each day since. To date, important fisheries remain closed due to cesium levels above Japanese limits for seafood. Ocean currents are bringing the flood of radioactive particles released from Fukushima beginning in March of 2011 and constantly pouring out since, to the West Coast. Buesseler now monitors over 50 sites along the West Coast, from Alaska to Mexico, with citizen-scientist funding and participation.

Radioactive Cesium from Fukushima was detected in ocean water samples in June of 2014 off the coast of Eureka, in northern California and in April 2015 close to shore in Ucluelet BC, as well as 1.8 miles offshore from Del Mar in Southern California, also in April 2015. Buesseler only measures for Cesium, since it’s easiest to test for, but many other deadly radionuclides are being emitted from Fukushima as well and are probably also in the current.

[ Editors’ note: Buesseler’s relatively unconcerned stance in this presentation appeared to change a bit the week after this talk when he spoke in Canada after the Japanese typhoon caused massive flooding of more radioactive contamination into the Pacific from Fukushima. see: Radioactivity In Our Ocean: Fukushima & Its Impact On The Pacific Streamed live on Sep 14, 2015

1:02:15 — Buesseler: “There have been ongoing releases… being maintained at higher levels… The groundwater is almost impossible to stop, so that will continue for decades… very hard to contain. Ice dams, things you can engineer to stop them, have never been done on this scale before, so it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen.”
1:09:30 — Audience Q&A: “Can anyone — scientists, physicists, anyone — really estimate the levels that are coming out of Fukushima on a daily basis? This rain event… how could anyone possibly estimate what is going… it’s disingenuous … to make these kind of assumptions — that it ‘probably’ won’t be a problem in the future. How can anyone say that? It’s never happened before… I don’t know where these predictions can really be nailed down, and was wondering your opinion on that as a couple of ‘good scientists’ (laughs).”
1:11:00 — Buesseler: “Fair points. It’s never happened before, it’s somewhat unpredictable and dynamic… There’s certainly not enough information. I was very frustrated after the rain event to find almost no information about the amount and levels that were in the ocean… There are some monitoring sites right in the harbor, and you can actually see the level of cesium go up from 1,000 of my units to 3,000 — so there was an impact. How long that’s going to continue? I can’t tell you… How it’s going to change in the future? We hope it gets back down to the levels that were near zero, but it never will be. It’s going to be — for decades, anyway — a site of continuous release… that’s what keeps me up at night, are continuous leaks that could happen at that site.”]

Pt. 2 – Fukushima Contamination – Dr. Tim Mousseau
“Bio-Impacts of Chernobyl & Fukushima”
Evolutionary biologist Dr. Tim Mousseau shares his alarming findings from his unique research on the biological effects of radiation exposure to wildlife, plants, trees, birds and insects from the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl & Fukushima. He is finding similar effects in both disaster areas.

Brangan explains why the independent scientific evidence so far strongly supports applying the Precautionary Principle in crafting the appropriate public policy response to radioactive fallout from the on-going Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan as well from continuing accidents and severe weather impacting all nuclear sites.

She calls for international solidarity with the plight of heartlessly dispossessed & ignored Fukushima refugees, and the explosive, youth-led current Japanese grassroots campaign against the militarism and nuclear brinkmanship of the US-supported Japanese Abe regime.

She encourages people to support independent research scientists’ projects and to join the growing movement to shut down California’s own ‘Fukushima-in-Waiting,’ PG&E’s aging Diablo Canyon, located close to 13 intersecting earthquake faults, in a tsunami zone not far south of San Francisco – the state’s ‘last nuke standing.’

Here are reports on a recent study of thyroid cancers in Fukushima children.

A study examining children who were 18 years and younger at the onset of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe found an increase in thyroid cancers, as predicted by World Health Organization (WHO) initial dose assessments.

Lead researcher Toshihide Tsuda, an epidemiologist at Okayama University, says “[t]his is more than expected and emerging faster than expected … ” by either initial WHO predictions or studies of thyroid cancers after the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in 1986. Tsuda was urged by international experts and the publishing journal to publish his study as soon as possible due to its potential implications for public health. Read more